


Prove the Child Ephemeral

by cest_what



Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Grave Robbers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-30
Updated: 2010-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-09 19:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cest_what/pseuds/cest_what
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mikey Way is a Victorian body snatcher ... but, mostly, Mikey Way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prove the Child Ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to softlyforgotten, for the beta and for the least productive writing session ever recorded.

Mikey hesitated over his gloves. Pete hadn't said anything about appropriate attire, but Mikey felt that grave robbing would probably be a dirty pastime. (In the material sense, and not in the way that people hissed about the trade in the streets.) Did that mean gloves or no gloves?

Mikey had been second assistant to the lecturer at his college of anatomy for a month now. The lecturer had called him a bright spark with a keen eye, which apparently meant that he was to be given a little set of chambers above the dissecting room, where the body snatchers brought their sad bundles, and that he was to be in charge of receiving these, and marking them in the accounts book. When that ready supply of anatomical subjects failed, he was also, sometimes, to assist Peter Wentz, the lecturer's first assistant, in that necessary practice that the crown persisted in regarding as both illegal and immoral.

The praise had given Mikey a warm feeling, and he didn't mind being woken in the small hours of the night to receive the desperate, shifty-eyed men who plundered the graves of London. It was interesting. Dead people were restful, and often a good deal more fascinating than live ones.

Mikey heard the rattle of wheels drawing up to the door, and chose in favour of the gloves. He was pulling them on, examining the lines of his fingers (fingers always looked strange in gloves), when the sharp rap came on his door.

Pete was bouncing on his heels a little when Mikey let him in. He greeted Mikey with a wide, nervy smile.

"Mikey, Mikey Way," he said, stepping inside. "Are you ready to be led into sin?"

Mikey crooked his mouth in a smile. "You make this sound a lot more fun than I bet it's going to be." He only stumbled over the joke a little.

Pete's smile got warmer, his eyes brightening some. "You don't think grave robbing sounds like fun?"

Mikey rolled his eyes. "Desperately. Let me get my coat."

Pete got jittery again while Mikey found and shrugged into his heavy wool coat. He wandered Mikey's rooms, compulsively touching things. Mikey watched him out of the corner of his eye. Pete was as carefully dressed as ever, though in dark clothing that wouldn't pick up the gleam of a lamp. His hair fell a little in his eyes – Mikey couldn't tell whether it was on purpose or not – and made him look as though he was hiding from the gaze. Pete was the most open person Mikey had met all this year, except for the times when it was impossible to tell what he was thinking at all. Not that Mikey was very good at reading faces in general, but he would like to be able to read Pete's.

Probably Pete was wrestling with his conscience, Mikey decided. The truth was that Mikey's strongest feeling towards tonight's excursion was curiosity. He wondered whether a body would look different, being pulled from the sanctity of the grave, than it did here on the dissecting table, or tumbling naked out of rough hessian sacking. He didn't think very much about the morality of the case. He knew that Pete thought about it a lot, and Mikey thought that if, with all of that thinking, Pete had still not come to a conclusion strong enough to make him abandon the career of anatomist and doctor, then probably the practice was forgivable.

He didn't think it would be a good idea to mention this philosophy to Pete.

"I'm ready," Mikey said, taking his hat from the stand by the door.

Pete turned around. He took two steps forward, lightly closing his hands around Mikey's arms where they rested at his side. He pressed Mikey's sleeves. "Stay warm," he said, stepping off again. Mikey tilted his head, feeling a small glow; it was almost warmth enough.

*

The little village that was their destination was several hours outside London. Pete had been there once before – on the same business as this evening's – and as they drove in, he couldn't help narrowly watching the faces of the villagers they passed, in case one of them should suddenly start up with pointed finger and cry, "Him! He's the devil who took our dead!" Of course it wouldn't happen – once a newly dug grave was filled in again, why would anybody dig it up to discover the empty coffin? – but he watched anyway.

They reached the inn they'd fixed on to dine at, and Pete drew up with a small spray of pebbles beneath the wheels. (He couldn't have helped himself if he'd tried.) Mikey unfolded himself and climbed down; Pete threw the stable hand a grin and a coin and hopped down himself, greeting the landlord as he came forward. He wondered idly what he and Mikey looked like – was there anything about them that suggested doctors? Did the cut of their coats say "London"? Pete could never tell.

Mikey was looking around with mild curiosity. He didn't speak until they were ensconced in a private room, sitting down to dinner.

"Do you think they know why we're here?" Mikey asked.

Pete shivered. "No." Then, "I hope not?" He prodded at his plate. "But now you've made me feel as though I should check for poison in my food."

Mikey looked at him quickly, a crooked half smile brightening his face.

It was Pete's mission in life to make Mikey smile that smile as often as possible. He turned to his probably-not-poisoned dinner, grinning idiotically to himself.

*

They drove off immediately after dining, Pete carelessly telling the landlord that they were headed to the next town along. Mikey glanced at him, wondering whether that was necessary. They drove in the direction of that next town for a little under a mile, until they were well out of sight of the village. There they stopped to retrieve the tools they had hidden in the hedge on their way into the village. Then Mikey extinguished the lamps and they turned down a byway through the fields, the horse picking his way with nervous steps in the dark.

The church graveyard was perhaps a half mile from the outskirts of the village; far enough to ease the superstitions of the villagers. It was probably a pretty place in daylight, with tumbled headstones and ivy grown in wild streams over the low surrounding wall. But in darkness it partook of the mystery of all graveyards at night. Clouds covered the sky and moon and a light rain soaked the ground black. Headstones were nothing but vague shapes, their human and godly messages vanished. The looming silhouette of an angel adorning a grander grave gave Mikey a momentary start. There was no sound but the huffing breath of their horse and themselves, the creak of their wheels as they drew to a stop, and the rain.

Mikey glanced at Pete, who grinned at him, a white flash in the dark. "We'll need lanterns again," Pete said. His voice came out hushed despite his grin.

Mikey turned to the lantern on his side of the gig. He heard the flare of another tinderbox a moment after he had found his own, and twin flames flickered into life. They lifted their lights and hefted each a spade, Pete grabbing the mattock and the rough sack lying beneath them.

The new grave was immediately identifiable. New, wet earth rose in a neat round, a simple stone set up at the head. Pete set his lantern down on the ground, the light throwing shadows and uncertain shapes between the headstones. Mikey lifted his own lantern, casting its light over the new stone.

"Laurence Godwin, d. 1824," he read.

Pete turned to give him a pained look. "Damn, don't do that. Why would you do that?"

Mikey set his lantern down on the other side of the grave. "I don't usually know," he explained. "When they come to us they're already nameless."

Pete rolled up his sleeves, driving his spade into the soft wet earth. "Why would that be?" he muttered. Mikey laughed.

Pete looked up, grinning at him. "You," he said, "are just _odd_. How great is that?"

Mikey wasn't sure how to answer, so he only ducked his head and pushed his spade into the grave.

The soil was already loose, even with the rain seeping through, but Mikey found that it didn't take very much digging before he was feeling the strain in his shoulders. He spared a moment of awe for the grave diggers who had hacked these six feet from the cold hard earth.

"This is the amateur way, of course," Pete said, straightening to throw another spadeful over the edge. They were waist deep at this point. "The professionals who usually supply us have a dozen ways to speed the process."

Mikey gave the grave a doubtful look. The process seemed fairly straightforward to him. He wiped a smear of dirt off his cheek. "Oh?"

Pete grinned, huffing with effort as he bent again. "Of course, graves in London are different – not so deep, but much more likely to be watched over by hawk-eyed mourners, or caged in iron. But depend on it, if they had the means to come so far afield when burials were scarce, our professional grave robbers would find more efficient methods."

Mikey rather liked the idea of being an amateurish grave robber. _Gentleman physician and amateur grave robber_, he thought. He should include that in his next letter to Gerard.

A short while later Mikey's spade struck something that made a hollow sound.

"Coffin!" Pete said. "I can't see – can you reach one of the lanterns?"

Mikey hefted his spade over the edge and planted his hands on the edge of the grave, pulling himself up. One of the lanterns was guttering, but the other still shone cleanly. He lifted this one and tilted it over the opened grave.

Pete was using a hand to push away the soil. Mikey passed the mattock down to him, sitting down on the edge of the grave. Pete turned the mattock and forced the blade under the edge of the coffin lid, heaving downwards. There was a splintering of wood and the lid came away. Pete lifted it up, gently, and gazed down at the form within.

Laurence Godwin had been a thin man of middle years. His features were waxy in the lantern light, pale and still. Pete leaned down, touching the white cheek. Then he looked up at Mikey. "There," he murmured. "Now you're damned, Mikey Way."

Mikey swung his feet a little, looking at Pete's upturned face. "I don't think I mind so much," he said. He looked at Pete and then away again. "Being damned? I think I could like the company." He felt his cheeks warm; he summoned an indifferent expression and fixed his eyes on the angel monument.

He could feel that Pete had gone still. He glanced down again and found Pete staring at him.

Pete smiled, slow, becoming brilliant. He dropped the mattock carefully beside the open coffin and held out a hand, bracing his other on the ground and letting Mikey tug him out of the grave. He twisted to sit next to Mikey on the edge, their legs dangling into the grave. It was still raining, a fine mist that settled on their coats and faces. Pete leaned close into Mikey's side, folding an arm around Mikey's shoulders, and kissed his cheek, his smile gone soft as he leaned away again. "All right, then," he said.

Mikey shrugged, smiling down at his knees, and leaned back.


End file.
